Along with the GOP winning 24 of the last 40 presidential elections there have been a total of 19 Republican Presidents, the most from any one party.[31] The first was 16th President Abraham Lincoln, who served from 1861 until his assassination in 1865; the most recent being the 45th and current president Donald Trump, who took the oath of office on January 20, 2017. However, the Republicans have lost the popular vote in six out of the last seven Presidential elections, as its traditional demographic is reducing as a proportion of the US population.[32][33][34][35]

As of 2018[update], the Republican Party is the primary party in power in the United States, holding the presidency (Donald Trump), majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, a majority of governorships and state legislatures (full control of 32/50, split control of five others).[36] Furthermore, the GOP presently hold "trifectas" (the executive branch and both chambers of the legislative branch) in a majority of states (26/50), and a "trifecta plus" (executive, legislative, and judicial branches) at the federal level,[37] as five of the nine current Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican presidents.[38]

The first official party convention was held on July 6, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan.[41] By 1858, the Republicans dominated nearly all Northern states. The Republican Party first came to power in the elections of 1860 when it won control of both houses of Congress and its candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was elected President. It oversaw the preserving of the Union, the end of slavery and the provision of equal rights to all men in the American Civil War and Reconstruction (1861–1877).

Early Republican ideology was reflected in the 1856 slogan "free labor, free land, free men", which had been coined by Salmon P. Chase, a Senator from Ohio (and future Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Justice of the United States). "Free labor" referred to the Republican opposition to slave labor and belief in independent artisans and businessmen. "Free land" referred to Republican opposition to the plantation system whereby slave owners could buy up all the good farmland, leaving the yeoman independent farmers the leftovers. The party strove to contain the expansion of slavery, which would cause the collapse of the slave power[further explanation needed] and the expansion of freedom.

Representing the fast-growing Western states, Lincoln won the Republican nomination in 1860 and subsequently won the presidency. The party took on the mission of preserving the Union and destroying slavery during the American Civil War and over Reconstruction. In the election of 1864, it united with War Democrats to nominate Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket. The Republican Party was at the center of Andrew Johnson's impeachment in 1868.

The Republican Party supported business generally, hard money (i.e. the gold standard), high tariffs to promote economic growth, high wages and high profits, generous pensions for Union veterans, and (after 1893) the annexation of Hawaii. The Republicans had strong support from pietistic Protestants, but they resisted demands for Prohibition. As the Northern postwar economy boomed with heavy and light industry, railroads, mines, fast-growing cities, and prosperous agriculture, the Republicans took credit and promoted policies to sustain the fast growth.

The GOP was usually dominant over the Democrats during the Third Party System (1850s–1890s). However, by 1890 the Republicans had agreed to the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Interstate Commerce Commission in response to complaints from owners of small businesses and farmers. The high McKinley Tariff of 1890 hurt the party and the Democrats swept to a landslide in the off-year elections, even defeating McKinley himself. The Democrats elected Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892. The election of William McKinley in 1896 was marked by a resurgence of Republican dominance that lasted (except for 1912 and 1916) until 1932. McKinley promised that high tariffs would end the severe hardship caused by the Panic of 1893 and that Republicans would guarantee a sort of pluralism in which all groups would benefit.[42]

The Republican Civil War era program included free homestead farms, a federally subsidized transcontinental railroad, a national banking system, a large national debt, land grants for higher education, a new national banking system, a wartime income tax and permanent high tariffs to promote industrial growth and high wages. By the 1870s, they had adopted as well a hard money system based on the gold standard and fought off efforts to promote inflation through Free Silver.[43] They created the foundations of the modern welfare state through an extensive program of pensions for Union veterans.[44] Foreign-policy issues were rarely a matter of partisan dispute, but briefly in the 1893–1904 period the GOP supported imperialistic expansion regarding Hawaii, the Philippines and the Panama Canal.[45]

20th century

The 1896 realignment cemented the Republicans as the party of big business while Theodore Roosevelt added more small business support by his embrace of trust busting. He handpicked his successor William Howard Taft in 1908, but they became enemies as the party split down the middle. Taft defeated Roosevelt for the 1912 nomination and Roosevelt ran on the ticket of his new Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party. He called for social reforms, many of which were later championed by New Deal Democrats in the 1930s. He lost and when most of his supporters returned to the GOP they found they did not agree with the new conservative economic thinking, leading to an ideological shift to the right in the Republican Party.[46] The Republicans returned to the White House throughout the 1920s, running on platforms of normalcy, business-oriented efficiency and high tariffs. The national party avoided the prohibition issue after it became law in 1920.

The New Deal coalition of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt controlled American politics for most of the next three decades, excepting the two-term presidency of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. Blacks moved into the Democratic Party during the New Deal era as they could vote in the North, but not in the South. After Roosevelt took office in 1933, New Deal legislation sailed through Congress and the economy moved sharply upward from its nadir in early 1933. However, long-term unemployment remained a drag until 1940. In the 1934 midterm elections, 10 Republican senators went down to defeat, leaving them with only 25 against 71 Democrats. The House of Representatives likewise had overwhelming Democratic majorities.

The Republican Party split into a majority "Old Right" (based in the Midwest) and a liberal wing based in the North-east that supported much of the New Deal. The Old Right sharply attacked the "Second New Deal" and said it represented class warfare and socialism. Roosevelt was re-elected in a landslide in 1936, but as his second term began the economy declined, strikes soared and he failed to take control of the Supreme Court or to purge the Southern conservatives in the Democratic Party. Republicans made a major comeback in the 1938 elections and had new rising stars such as Robert A. Taft of Ohio on the right and Thomas E. Dewey of New York on the left. Southern conservatives joined with most Republicans to form the conservative coalition, which dominated domestic issues in Congress until 1964. Both parties split on foreign policy issues, with the anti-war isolationists dominant in the Republican Party and the interventionists who wanted to stop Adolf Hitler dominant in the Democratic Party. Roosevelt won a third and fourth term in 1940 and 1944. Conservatives abolished most of the New Deal during the war, but they did not attempt to reverse Social Security or the agencies that regulated business.

Unlike the "moderate", internationalist, largely eastern bloc of Republicans who accepted (or at least acquiesced in) some of the "Roosevelt Revolution" and the essential premises of President Truman's foreign policy, the Republican Right at heart was counterrevolutionary, anti-collectivist, anti-Communist, anti-New Deal, passionately committed to limited government, free market economics, and congressional (as opposed to executive) prerogatives, the G.O.P. conservatives were obliged from the start to wage a constant two-front war: against liberal Democrats from without and "me-too" Republicans from within.[47]

The Democrats elected majorities to Congress almost continuously after 1932 (the GOP won only in 1946 and 1952), but the conservative coalition blocked practically all major liberal proposals in domestic policy. After 1945, the internationalist wing of the GOP cooperated with Harry S. Truman's Cold War foreign policy, funded the Marshall Plan and supported NATO, despite the continued isolationism of the Old Right.

The second half of the 20th century saw election or succession of Republican presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Eisenhower had defeated conservative leader Senator Robert A. Taft for the 1952 nomination, but conservatives dominated the domestic policies of the Eisenhower administration. Voters liked Eisenhower much more than they liked the GOP and he proved unable to shift the party to a more moderate position. After 1970, the liberal wing began to fade away.

Ever since he left office in 1989, Reagan has been the iconic conservative Republican and Republican presidential candidates frequently claim to share his views and aim to establish themselves and their policies as the more appropriate heir to his legacy.[48]

In 1994, the party, led by House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich campaigning on the "Contract with America", was elected to majorities in both Houses of Congress during the Republican Revolution. However, as House Speaker Gingrich was unable to deliver on much of its promises, including a balanced-budget amendment and term limits for members of Congress. During the impeachment and acquittal of President Bill Clinton, Republicans suffered surprise losses in the 1998 midterm elections; Gingrich took the blame and announced his retirement. Since Reagan's day, presidential elections have been close. However, since 1992, the Republican presidential candidate has won a majority of the popular vote only once, in 2004. In 2000 and 2016, Republicans were elected despite losing the popular vote.

21st century

The Senate majority lasted until 2001 when the Senate became split evenly, but it was regained in the 2002 elections. Both Republican majorities in the House and Senate were held until the Democrats regained control in the mid-term elections of 2006. The Republican Party has since been defined by social conservatism, a preemptive war foreign policy intended to defeat terrorism and promote global democracy, a more powerful executive branch, supply side economics, support for gun ownership and deregulation.

2010 was a year of electoral success for the Republicans, starting with the upset win of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special Senate election for the seat held for many decades by the Democratic Kennedy brothers. In the November elections, Republicans recaptured control of the House, increased their number of seats in the Senate and gained a majority of governorships.[49]

In the presidential election of 2012, the Republican nominees were former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts for President and Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin for Vice President. The Democrats nominated incumbents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The campaign focused largely on the Affordable Care Act and President Obama's stewardship of the economy, with the country facing high unemployment numbers and a rising national debt four years after his first election. Romney and Ryan were defeated by Obama and Biden. In addition, while Republicans lost 7 seats in the House in the November congressional elections, they still retained control. However, Republicans were not able to gain control of the Senate, continuing their minority status with a net loss of 2 seats.

After the 2014 midterm elections, the Republican Party took control of the Senate by gaining nine seats.[50] With a final total of 247 seats (57%) in the House and 54 seats in the Senate, the Republicans ultimately achieved their largest majority in the Congress since the 71st Congress in 1929.[51]

Donald Trump, 45th and current President of the United States (2017–present)

After the 2016 elections, Republicans maintained a majority in the Senate, House, Governorships and elected Donald Trump as President. The Republican Party controls 69 of 99 state legislative chambers in 2017, the most it has held in history;[52] and at least 33 governorships, the most it has held since 1922.[53] The party has total control of government (legislative chambers and governorship) in 25 states,[54][55] the most since 1952;[56] while the opposing Democratic Party has full control in five states.[57]

Recent trends

For most of the post-World War II era, Republicans had little presence at the state legislative level. This trend began to reverse in the late 1990s, with Republicans increasing their state legislative presence and taking control of state legislatures in the south, which had begun to vote for Republican presidential candidates decades earlier, but had retained Democrats in the legislatures. From 2004 to 2014, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) raised over $140 million targeted to state legislature races while the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLSC) raised less than half that during that time period. Following the 2014 midterm elections, Republicans control 68 of 98 partisan state legislative houses, the most in the party's history and have control of both the governorship and state legislatures in 24 states as opposed to only 7 states with Democratic governors and state legislatures.[58] According to a January 2015 poll by the Pew Research Center, 41% of Americans view the Republicans favorably while 46% view the Democrats favorably.[59]

With the inauguration of Republican George W. Bush as President, the Republican Party remained fairly cohesive for much of the 2000s as both strong economic libertarians and social conservatives opposed the Democrats, whom they saw as the party of bloated and more secular, liberal government.[60] The Bush-era rise of what were known as "pro-government conservatives", a core part of the President's base, meant that a considerable group of the Republicans advocated for increased government spending and greater regulations covering both the economy and people's personal lives as well as for an activist, interventionist foreign policy. Survey groups such as the Pew Research Center found that social conservatives and free market advocates remained the other two main groups within the party's coalition of support, with all three being roughly of the same number.[61][62]

In March 2013, National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus gave a stinging report on the party's failures in 2012, calling on Republicans to reinvent themselves and officially endorse immigration reform. He said: "There's no one reason we lost. Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren't inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital, and our primary and debate process needed improvement". He proposed 219 reforms that included a $10 million marketing campaign to reach women, minorities and gays as well as setting a shorter, more controlled primary season and creating better data collection facilities.[65]

With a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents under the age of 49 supporting legal recognition of same-sex marriages versus the opposition remaining from those over 50, the issue remains a particular divide within the party. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has remarked that the "[p]arty is going to be torn on this issue" with some constituents "going to flake off".[66][67] A Reuters/Ipsos survey from April 2015 found that 68% of Americans overall would attend the same-sex wedding of a loved one, with 56% of Republicans agreeing. Reuters journalist Jeff Mason remarked that "Republicans who stake out strong opposition to gay marriage could be on shaky political ground if their ultimate goal is to win the White House" given the divide between the social conservative stalwarts and the rest of the United States that opposes them.[68]

The Republican candidate for President in 2012, Mitt Romney, lost to incumbent President Barack Obama, the fifth time in six elections the Republican candidate received fewer votes than his Democratic counterpart. In the aftermath of the loss, some prominent Republicans spoke out against their own party. For example, 1996 Republican Presidential candidate and longtime former Senator Bob Dole said that "today's GOP members are too conservative and overly partisan. They ought to put a sign on the National Committee doors that says closed for repairs".[69] Former Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine stated as well that she was in agreement with Dole.[70] Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (under George H.W. Bush) and former Secretary of State (under George W. Bush) Colin Powell remarked that the GOP has "a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party", commenting about the birther movement "[w]hy do senior Republican leaders tolerate this kind of discussion within the party?" and "I think the party has to take a look at itself".[71] The College Republican National Committee (CRNC) released a report in June 2013 that was highly critical of the party, being titled "Grand Old Party for a Brand New Generation".[72][needs update]

Name and symbols

1874 Nast cartoon featuring the first notable appearance of the Republican elephant[73]

The red, white and blue Republican elephant, still a primary logo for many state GOP committees

The circa 2013 GOP logo

The party's founding members chose the name Republican Party in the mid-1850s as homage to the values of republicanism promoted by Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party.[74] The idea for the name came from an editorial by the party's leading publicist, Horace Greeley, who called for "some simple name like 'Republican' [that] would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery".[75] The name reflects the 1776 republican values of civic virtue and opposition to aristocracy and corruption.[76] It is important to note that "republican" has a variety of meanings around the world and the Republican Party has evolved such that the meanings no longer always align.[77][78]

The term "Grand Old Party" is a traditional nickname for the Republican Party and the abbreviation "GOP" is a commonly used designation. The term originated in 1875 in the Congressional Record, referring to the party associated with the successful military defense of the Union as "this gallant old party". The following year in an article in the Cincinnati Commercial, the term was modified to "grand old party". The first use of the abbreviation is dated 1884.[79]

The traditional mascot of the party is the elephant. A political cartoon by Thomas Nast, published in Harper's Weekly on November 7, 1874, is considered the first important use of the symbol.[80] An alternate symbol of the Republican Party in states such as Indiana, New York and Ohio is the bald eagle as opposed to the Democratic rooster or the Democratic five-pointed star.[81][82] In Kentucky, the log cabin is a symbol of the Republican Party (not related to the gay Log Cabin Republicans organization).[83]

Traditionally the party had no consistent color identity.[84][85][86] After the 2000 election, the color red became associated with Republicans. During and after the election, the major broadcast networks used the same color scheme for the electoral map: states won by Republican nominee George W. Bush were colored red and states won by Democratic nominee Al Gore were colored blue. Due to the weeks-long dispute over the election results, these color associations became firmly ingrained, persisting in subsequent years. Although the assignment of colors to political parties is unofficial and informal, the media has come to represent the respective political parties using these colors. The party and its candidates have also come to embrace the color red.[87]

Structure and organization

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is responsible for promoting Republican campaign activities. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. Its current chairwoman is Ronna Romney McDaniel. The chair of the RNC is chosen by the President when the Republicans have the White House or otherwise by the party's state committees.

Under the direction of the party's presidential candidate, the RNC supervises the Republican National Convention (the highest body in the party) and raises funds for candidates. On the local level, there are similar state committees in every state and most large cities, counties and legislative districts, but they have far less money and influence than the national body.

Republicans strongly believe that free markets and individual achievement are the primary factors behind economic prosperity. To this end, they advocate the elimination of government-run welfare programs in favor of private sector nonprofits and encouraging personal responsibility. Republicans also frequently advocate in favor of fiscal conservatism during Democratic administrations, but have shown themselves willing to increase federal debt when they are in charge of the government, such as the implementation of the Bush tax cuts, Medicare Part D and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.[89][90][91][92]

Modern Republicans advocate the theory of supply side economics, which holds that lower tax rates increase economic growth.[93] Many Republicans oppose higher tax rates for higher earners, which they believe are unfairly targeted at those who create jobs and wealth. They believe private spending is more efficient than government spending.

Republicans believe individuals should take responsibility for their own circumstances. They also believe the private sector is more effective in helping the poor through charity than the government is through welfare programs and that social assistance programs often cause government dependency. 2016 and 2017 polls also found that an overwhelming majority of Republicans support protectionism and autarky and oppose free trade.[94][95][96]

Republicans believe corporations should be able to establish their own employment practices, including benefits and wages, with the free market deciding the price of work. Since the 1920s, Republicans have generally been opposed by labor union organizations and members. At the national level, Republicans supported the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which gives workers the right not to participate in unions. Modern Republicans at the state level generally support various "right-to-work" laws that weaken unions.[97]

Most Republicans tend to oppose increases in the minimum wage, believing that such increases hurt businesses by forcing them to cut and outsource jobs and pass costs along to consumers.

Since the 1990s, a significant part of the American conservative movement has worked to challenge climate science and climate policy.[103] While the scientific consensus for human activity created climate-warming is around 97%,[106] according to a Pew Research survey 44% of American adults in the general public acknowledged human activity as the cause of climate change and 23% of Republicans.[107] Republican views on global warming and scientific consensus on climate change show a similar trend and few Republican lawmakers support climate policy that builds on international consensus.[103]

Many Republicans during the presidency of Barack Obama had opposed then President's new environmental regulations, such as those on carbon emissions from coal. In particular, many Republicans support building the Keystone Pipeline, which is supported by businesses, but opposed by indigenous peoples' groups and environmental activists.[114][115][116]

The Republican Party is unique in denying anthropogenic climate change among conservative political parties across the Western world.[117][118] From 2008 to 2017, the Republican Party went from "debating how to combat human-caused climate change to arguing that it does not exist", according to The New York Times.[119] In 2011, "more than half of the Republicans in the House and three-quarters of Republican senators" said "that the threat of global warming, as a man-made and highly threatening phenomenon, is at best an exaggeration and at worst an utter 'hoax'", according to Judith Warner writing in The New York Times Magazine.[120] In 2014, more than 55% of congressional Republicans were climate change deniers, according to NBC News.[121][122] According to PolitiFact in May 2014, "relatively few Republican members of Congress...accept the prevailing scientific conclusion that global warming is both real and man-made...eight out of 278, or about 3 percent".[123][124]

Immigration

Republicans are divided on how to confront illegal immigration between a platform that allows for migrant workers and a path to citizenship (supported by establishment types), versus a position focused on securing the border and deporting illegal immigrants (supported by populists). In 2006, the White House supported and Republican-led Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform that would eventually allow millions of illegal immigrants to become citizens, but the House (also led by Republicans) did not advance the bill.[127]

After the defeat in the 2012 presidential election, particularly among Latinos, several Republicans advocated a friendlier approach to immigrants. However, in 2016 the field of candidates took a sharp position against illegal immigration, with leading candidate Donald Trump proposing building a wall along the southern border.

Proposals calling for immigration reform with a path to citizenship have attracted broad Republican support in some[which?] polls. In a 2013 poll, 60% of Republicans supported the pathway concept.[128]

Foreign policy and national defense

Some[who?] in the Republican Party support unilateralism on issues of national security, believing in the ability and right of the United States to act without external support in matters of its national defense. In general, Republican thinking on defense and international relations is heavily influenced by the theories of neorealism and realism, characterizing conflicts between nations as struggles between faceless forces of international structure as opposed to being the result of the ideas and actions of individual leaders. The realist school's influence shows in Reagan's Evil Empire stance on the Soviet Union and George W. Bush's Axis of evil stance.

Republicans have frequently advocated for restricting foreign aid as a means of asserting the national security and immigration interests of the United States.[130][131][132]

The Republican Party generally supports a strong alliance with Israel and efforts to secure peace in the Middle East between Israel and its Arab neighbors.[133][134] In recent years, Republicans have begun to move away from the two-state solution approach to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[135][136] In a 2014 poll, 59% of Republicans favored doing less abroad and focusing on the country's own problems instead.[137]

According to the 2016 platform,[138] the party's stance on the status of Taiwan is: "We oppose any unilateral steps by either side to alter the status quo in the Taiwan Straits on the principle that all issues regarding the island's future must be resolved peacefully, through dialogue, and be agreeable to the people of Taiwan". In addition, if "China were to violate those principles, the United States, in accord with the Taiwan Relations Act, will help Taiwan defend itself".

Abortion and embryonic stem cell research

A majority of the party's national and state candidates are pro-life and oppose elective abortion on religious or moral grounds. While many advocate exceptions in the case of incest, rape or the mother's life being at risk, in 2012 the party approved a platform advocating banning abortions without exception.[141] There were not highly polarized differences between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party prior to the Roe v. Wade 1976 Supreme Court ruling (which made prohibitions on abortion rights unconstitutional), but after the Supreme Court ruling, opposition to abortion became a key national platform for the Republican Party.[23][142] As a result, Evangelicals gravitated towards the Republican Party.[23][142]

Until its dissolution in 2018, Republican Majority for Choice, a pro-choice PAC, advocated for amending the GOP platform to include pro-choice members.[144] According to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 52% of Republicans support the Roe v. Wade decision while 39% want the decision overturned.[145] In a 2014 Gallup poll, 69% of Republicans self-identified as pro-life and 27% self-identified as pro-choice.[146]

Although Republicans have voted for increases in government funding of scientific research, members of the Republican Party actively oppose the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research beyond the original lines because it involves the destruction of human embryos.[147][148][149] In 2010, a poll conducted by Gallup found that 54% of Republicans opposed embryonic stem-cell research while 40% support it.[150]

Civil rights

Republicans are generally against affirmative action for women and some minorities, often describing it as a "quota system" and believing that it is not meritocratic and that it is counter-productive socially by only further promoting discrimination. Many[who?] Republicans support race-neutral admissions policies in universities, but support taking into account the socioeconomic status of the student.[151][152]

LGBT issues

Owing largely to the prominence of the religious right in conservative politics in the United States, the Republican Party has taken positions regarded as outwardly hostile to the gay rights movement. Republicans have historically strongly opposed same-sex marriage (the party's overall attitude on civil unions is much more divided, with some in favor and others opposed), with the issue a galvanizing one that many believe helped George W. Bush win re-election in 2004. In both 2004[155] and 2006,[156] congressional Republican leaders[which?] promoted the Federal Marriage Amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment which would legally restrict the definition of marriage to heterosexual couples. In both attempts, the amendment failed to secure enough votes to invoke cloture and thus ultimately was never passed. As more states legalized same-sex marriage in the 2010s, Republicans increasingly supported allowing each state to decide its own marriage policy.[157]

The Republican Party opposed the inclusion of sexual preference in anti-discrimination statutes from 1992 to 2004.[159] The 2008 and 2012 Republican Party platform supported anti-discrimination statues based on sex, race, age, religion, creed, disability, or national origin, but both platforms were silent on sexual orientation and gender identity.[160][161]

A 2013 poll found that 61% of Republicans support laws protecting gay and lesbian people against employment discrimination[157] and a 2007 poll showed 60% of Republicans supported expanding federal hate crime laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity.[162] A 2009 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 48% of Republicans supported civil unions for same-sex couples.[163] Another poll, in 2012, from CBS News/New York Times, showed that approximately "half of Republicans" do not support legal recognition of any kind for same-sex couples.[164] A poll conducted in 2018 by Gallup revealed that 44% of Republicans support same-sex marriage.[165]

Voting rights

Virtually all restrictions on voting have in recent years been implemented by Republicans. Republicans argue that the voting restrictions - such as requiring certain photo IDs, purging voter rolls and limiting voting locations and method of voting - are need to combat voter fraud. However, research shows that voter fraud is extremely rare, and numerous court rulings have found that Republicans introduced voting restrictions with partisan intent.[166]

Composition

Prior to the formation of the conservative coalition, which helped realign the Democratic and Republican party ideologies in the mid-1960s, the party had historically advocated classical liberalism and progressivism. The party is a full member of the conservative International Democrat Union as well as the Asia Pacific Democrat Union. It is also an associate member of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe,[14] which has close relations to the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom. According to the most recent Gallup poll, 25% of Americans identify as Republican and 16% identify as leaning Republican. In comparison, 30% identify as Democratic and 16% identify as leaning Democratic. The Democratic Party has typically held an overall edge in party identification since Gallup began polling on the issue in 1991.[167] In another Gallup poll, 42% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents identified as economically and socially conservative, followed by 24% as socially and economically moderate or liberal, 20% as socially moderate or liberal and fiscally conservative and 10% as socially conservative and fiscally moderate or liberal.[168]

Historically, the Republican base initially consisted of Northern white Protestants and African Americans nationwide, with the first presidential candidate John C. Frémont receiving almost no votes in the South. This trend continued into the 20th century, with 1944 Republican presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey having only 10% of his popular votes in the South. After passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Southern states became more reliably Republican in presidential politics with the Northeastern states becoming more reliably Democratic.[169][170][171][172][173][174][175][176] Studies show that Southern whites shifted to the Republican Party due to racial conservatism.[175][177][178] The 1994 election has been described as a realigning election at the congressional level as Republicans obtained a majority of House and Senate seats for the first time since Reconstruction.[170][179]

The party's current base consists of groups such as white, married Protestants, rural and suburban citizens and non-union workers without college degrees, with urban residents, ethnic minorities, the unmarried and union workers having shifted to the Democratic Party.[180]

When ideology is separated into social and economic issues, a 2015 Gallup poll found that 53% of Republicans called themselves 'socially conservative,' 34% chose the label 'socially moderate,' and 11% called themselves 'socially liberal.'[182] On economic issues, the same 2015 poll revealed that 64% of Republicans chose the label 'economic conservative' to describe their views on fiscal policy while 27% selected the label 'economic moderate' and 7% opted for 'economic liberal' to describe their fiscal policy.[182]

Establishment vs. anti-establishment

In addition to splits over ideology, the party can be broadly divided into the establishment and anti-establishment.

Nationwide polls of Republican voters in 2014 by the Pew Center identified a growing split in the Republican coalition, between "business conservatives" or "establishment conservatives" and "steadfast conservatives" or "populist conservatives".[183]

The Tea Party movement is typically aligned with the Republican Party, but it feuds with the pro-business wing of the party, which it sees as too moderate and too willing to compromise.[184]

In Congress, Eric Cantor's position as Majority Leader went to California Congressman Kevin McCarthy, who had been an advocate of the Export-Import Bank. It finances overseas purchases of American products, especially airplanes. However, McCarthy changed positions after meeting with populist Congressmen and decided to support the termination of the Bank.[185][186]

Conservatives, moderates, liberals and progressives

Republican conservatives are strongest in the South, Mountain West and Midwest, where they draw support from social conservatives. The moderates tend to dominate the party in New England and used to be well represented in all states. From the 1940s to the 1970s under such leaders as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, they usually dominated the presidential-wing of the party. Since the 1970s, they have been less powerful, though they are always represented in the cabinets of Republican Presidents. In Vermont, Jim Jeffords, a Republican Senator became an independent in 2001 due to growing disagreement with President Bush and the party leadership. In addition, moderate Republicans have recently held the governorships in several New England states while Lincoln Chafee, a former moderate Republican senator is an independent-turned-Democrat former governor of Rhode Island. Former Senator Olympia Snowe and current Senator Susan Collins, both of Maine; and former Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts are notable moderate and pro-choice Republicans from New England. Former Senator Mark Kirk is another example of a moderate Republican from a Democratic stronghold, Illinois, who held the Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama. Senator Lisa Murkowski is a high-profile moderate Republican who broke with her party by voting against repealing the Affordable Care Act and against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.[187][188] From 1991 to 2007, moderate Republicans served as governors of Massachusetts. Prominent Republican moderates have included former Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Bush Sr. as well as former Senate leaders Howard Baker and Bob Dole, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.

Business community

Republicans are usually seen as the traditionally pro-business party and it garners major support from a wide variety of industries from the financial sector to small businesses. Republicans are about 50 percent more likely to be self-employed and are more likely to work in management.[192]

A survey cited by The Washington Post in 2012 stated that 61 percent of small business owners planned to vote for then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Small business became a major theme of the 2012 Republican National Convention. For example, South Dakota Senator John Thune discussed his grandfather's hardware store and New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte referred to her husband's landscaping company.[193]

Demographics

The Democrats do better among younger Americans and Republicans among older Americans. In 2006, Republicans won 38% of the voters aged 18–29.[194]

Low-income voters tend to favor the Democrats while high-income voters tend to support the Republicans. In 2012, Obama won 60% of voters with income under $50,000 and 45% of those with incomes higher than that.[195] Bush won 41% of the poorest 20% of voters in 2004, 55% of the richest twenty percent and 53% of those in between. In the 2006 House races, the voters with incomes over $50,000 were 49% Republican while those under were 38%.[194]

Gender

Since 1980, a "gender gap" has seen slightly stronger support for the Republican Party among men than among women. In 2012, Obama won 55% of the women and 45% of the men—and more women voted than men.[195] In the 2006 House races, 43% of women voted Republican while 47% of men did so.[194] In the 2010 midterms, the "gender gap" was reduced with women supporting Republican and Democratic candidates equally 49% to 49%.[196][197] Unmarried and divorced women were far more likely to vote for John Kerry in 2004.[198] The 2012 returns revealed a continued weakness among unmarried women for the GOP, a large and growing portion of the electorate.[199] Although Mitt Romney lost women as a whole 44–55 to Obama, he won married women 53–46.[200] Obama won unmarried women 67–31.[201]

Education

In 2012, the Pew Research Center conducted a study of registered voters with a 35–28, Democrat-to-Republican gap. They found that self-described Democrats had a +8 advantage over Republicans among college graduates, +14 of all post-graduates polled. Republicans were +11 among white men with college degrees, Democrats +10 among women with degrees. Democrats accounted for 36% of all respondents with an education of high school or less and Republicans were 28%. When isolating just white registered voters polled, Republicans had a +6 advantage overall and were +9 of those with a high school education or less.[202]

Ethnicity

(2017–present) Republicans have been winning under 15% of the black vote in recent national elections (1980 to 2016). While historically the party had been supporters of rights for African Americans starting in the 1860s, it lost its leadership position in the 1960s.[citation needed] The party abolished slavery under Abraham Lincoln, defeated the Slave Power and gave blacks the legal right to vote during Reconstruction in the late 1860s. Until the New Deal of the 1930s, blacks supported the Republican Party by large margins.[203] Black voters shifted to the Democratic Party beginning in the 1930s, when major Democratic figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt began to support civil rights and the New Deal offered them employment opportunities. They became one of the core components of the New Deal coalition. In the South, after the Voting Rights Act to prohibit racial discrimination in elections was passed by a bipartisan coalition in 1965, blacks were able to vote again and ever since have formed a significant portion (20–50%) of the Democratic vote in that region.[204]

For decades, a greater percentage of white voters identified themselves as Democrats, rather than Republicans. However, since the mid-1990s whites have been more likely to self-identify as Republicans than Democrats.[205]

In the 2010 elections, two African American Republicans were elected to the House of Representatives.[206] The party has recently nominated African American candidates for senator or governor in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland, though none were successful.

In recent decades, Republicans have been moderately successful in gaining support from Hispanic and Asian American voters. George W. Bush, who campaigned energetically for Hispanic votes, received 35% of their vote in 2000 and 44% in 2004.[207] The party's strong anti-communist stance has made it popular among some minority groups from current and former Communist states, in particular Cuban Americans, Korean Americans, Chinese Americans and Vietnamese Americans. The election of Bobby Jindal as Governor of Louisiana has been hailed as pathbreaking.[208] He is the first elected minority governor in Louisiana and the first state governor of Indian descent.[209] According to John Avlon in 2013, the Republican party is more diverse at the statewide elected official level than the Democratic Party, including Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.[210]

In 2012, 88% of Romney voters were white while 56% of Obama voters were white.[211] In the 2008 presidential election, John McCain won 55% of white votes, 35% of Asian votes, 31% of Hispanic votes and 4% of African American votes.[212] In the 2010 House election, Republicans won 60% of the white votes, 38% of Hispanic votes and 9% of the African American vote.[213]

Religious beliefs

Religion has always played a major role for both parties, but in the course of a century the parties' religious compositions have changed. Religion was a major dividing line between the parties before 1960, with Catholics, Jews and Southern Protestants heavily Democratic and Northeastern Protestants heavily Republican. Most of the old differences faded away after the realignment of the 1970s and 1980s that undercut the New Deal coalition.[214] Voters who attend church weekly gave 61% of their votes to Bush in 2004 and those who attend occasionally gave him only 47% while those who never attend gave him 36%. Fifty-nine percent of Protestants voted for Bush, along with 52% of Catholics (even though John Kerry was Catholic). Since 1980, large majorities of evangelicals have voted Republican; 70–80% voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 and 70% for Republican House candidates in 2006. Jews continue to vote 70–80% Democratic. Democrats have close links with the African American churches, especially the National Baptists, while their historic dominance among Catholic voters has eroded to 54–46 in the 2010 midterms.[215] The main line traditional Protestants (Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Disciples) have dropped to about 55% Republican (in contrast to 75% before 1968). The mainline denominations are rapidly shrinking in size. Mormons in Utah and neighboring states voted 75% or more for Bush in 2000.[216]

While Catholic Republican leaders try to stay in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church on subjects such as abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and same-sex marriage, they differ on the death penalty and contraception.[217]Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical Laudato si' sparked a discussion on the positions of Catholic Republicans in relation to the positions of the Church. The Pope's encyclical on behalf of the Catholic Church officially acknowledges a man-made climate change caused by burning fossil fuels.[218] The Pope says the warming of the planet is rooted in a throwaway culture and the developed world's indifference to the destruction of the planet in pursuit of short-term economic gains. According to The New York Times, Laudato si' put pressure on the Catholic candidates in the 2016 election: Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum.[219] With leading Democrats praising the encyclical, James Bretzke, a professor of moral theology at Boston College, has said that both sides were being disingenuous: "I think it shows that both the Republicans and the Democrats... like to use religious authority and, in this case, the Pope to support positions they have arrived at independently... There is a certain insincerity, a hypocrisy I think, on both sides".[220] While a Pew Research poll indicates Catholics are more likely to believe the Earth is warming than non-Catholics, 51% of Catholic Republicans believe in global warming (less than the general population) and only 24% of Catholic Republicans believe global warming is caused by human activity.[221]

Since 1980, geographically the Republican "base" ("red states") is strongest in the South, the Midwest and Mountain West. While it is weakest on the West Coast and Northeast, this has not always been the case as historically the Northeast was a bastion of the Republican Party, with Vermont and Maine being the only two states to vote against Franklin D. Roosevelt all four times. In the Northeast, Maine, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania continue to have a considerable Republican presence. The Midwest has been roughly balanced since 1854, with Illinois becoming more Democratic and liberal because of the city of Chicago (see below) and Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin more Republican since 1990. Ohio, Missouri and Indiana all trend Republican. Since the 1930s, the Democrats have dominated most central cities while the Republicans now dominate rural areas and the majority of suburbs.[222]

The South has become solidly Republican in national elections since 1980 and has been trending Republican at the state level since then at a slower pace.[223] In 2004, Bush led Kerry by 70–30% among Southern whites, who made up 71% of the Southern electorate. Kerry had a 70–30 lead among the 29% of the voters who were black or Hispanic. One-third of these Southern voters said they were white evangelicals and they voted for Bush by 80–20, but were only 72% Republican in 2006.[194][207]

The Republican Party's strongest focus of political influence lies in the Great Plains states, particularly Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota; and in the Mountain states of Idaho, Wyoming and Utah (Utah gave George W. Bush more than 70% of the popular vote in 2004). These states are sparsely populated with few major urban centers and have majority white populations, making it extremely difficult for Democrats to create a sustainable voter base there. While still remaining notably Republican, Montana is the only state in the region with a more moderate lean.[224] Unlike the South, these areas have been strongly Republican since before the party realignments of the 1960s.[citation needed] The Great Plains states were one of the few areas of the country where Republicans had any significant support during the Great Depression.[citation needed]

^Similar to the 2004 map, Republicans dominate in rural areas, making improvements in the Appalachian states, namely Kentucky, where the party won all but two counties; and West Virginia, where every county in the state voted Republican. The party also improved in many rural counties in Iowa, Wisconsin and other Midwestern states. Contrarily, the party suffered substantial losses in urbanized areas such Dallas, Harris and Fort Bend counties in Texas and Orange and San Diego counties in California, all of which were won in 2004, but lost in 2016

^Although Hayes won a majority of votes in the Electoral College, Democrat Samuel J. Tilden won a majority of the popular vote.

^Although Harrison won a majority of votes in the Electoral College, Democrat Grover Cleveland won a plurality of the popular vote.

^Although Bush won a majority of votes in the Electoral College, Democrat Al Gore won a plurality of the popular vote.

^Although Trump won a majority of votes in the Electoral College, Democrat Hillary Clinton won a plurality of the popular vote.

References

^Paul Gottfried, Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right, p. 9, "Postwar conservatives set about creating their own synthesis of free-market capitalism, Christian morality, and the global struggle against Communism." (2009); Gottfried, Theologies and moral concern (1995) p. 12.

^George H. Nash, "The Republican Right from Taft to Reagan", Reviews in American History (1984) 12#2 pp. 261–65 in JSTOR quote on p. 261; Nash references David W. Reinhard, The Republican Right since 1945, (University Press of Kentucky, 1983)

^Båtstrand, Sondre (2015). "More than Markets: A Comparative Study of Nine Conservative Parties on Climate Change". Politics and Policy. 43 (4): 538–561. doi:10.1111/polp.12122. ISSN1747-1346. The U.S. Republican Party is an anomaly in denying anthropogenic climate change.

^Chait, Jonathan (September 27, 2015). "Why Are Republicans the Only Climate-Science-Denying Party in the World?". New York. Retrieved September 20, 2017. Of all the major conservative parties in the democratic world, the Republican Party stands alone in its denial of the legitimacy of climate science. Indeed, the Republican Party stands alone in its conviction that no national or international response to climate change is needed. To the extent that the party is divided on the issue, the gap separates candidates who openly dismiss climate science as a hoax, and those who, shying away from the political risks of blatant ignorance, instead couch their stance in the alleged impossibility of international action.

^Davenport, Coral; Lipton, Eric (June 3, 2017). "How G.O.P. Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science". The New York Times. ISSN0362-4331. Retrieved September 22, 2017. The Republican Party's fast journey from debating how to combat human-caused climate change to arguing that it does not exist is a story of big political money, Democratic hubris in the Obama years and a partisan chasm that grew over nine years like a crack in the Antarctic shelf, favoring extreme positions and uncompromising rhetoric over cooperation and conciliation.

^Warner, Judith (February 27, 2011). "Fact-Free Science". The New York Times Magazine. pp. 11–12. Retrieved September 9, 2017. It would be easier to believe in this great moment of scientific reawakening, of course, if more than half of the Republicans in the House and three-quarters of Republican senators did not now say that the threat of global warming, as a man-made and highly threatening phenomenon, is at best an exaggeration and at worst an utter "hoax," as James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, once put it. These grim numbers, compiled by the Center for American Progress, describe a troubling new reality: the rise of the Tea Party and its anti-intellectual, anti-establishment, anti-elite worldview has brought both a mainstreaming and a radicalization of antiscientific thought.

^Matthews, Chris (May 12, 2014). "Hardball With Chris Matthews for May 12, 2014". Hardball With Chris Matthews. MSNBC. NBC news. According to a survey by the Center for American Progress' Action Fund, more than 55 percent of congressional Republicans are climate change deniers. And it gets worse from there. They found that 77 percent of Republicans on the House Science Committee say they don't believe it in either. And that number balloons to an astounding 90 percent for all the party's leadership in Congress.

^"Earth Talk: Still in denial about climate change". The Charleston Gazette. Charleston, West Virginia. December 22, 2014. p. 10. [...] a recent survey by the non-profit Center for American Progress found that some 58 percent of Republicans in the U.S. Congress still "refuse to accept climate change. Meanwhile, still others acknowledge the existence of global warming but cling to the scientifically debunked notion that the cause is natural forces, not greenhouse gas pollution by humans.

^ abBullock, Charles S.; Hoffman, Donna R.; Gaddie, Ronald Keith (2006). "Regional Variations in the Realignment of American Politics, 1944–2004". Social Science Quarterly. 87 (3): 494–518. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6237.2006.00393.x. ISSN0038-4941. Retrieved June 9, 2018. The events of 1964 laid open the divisions between the South and national Democrats and elicited distinctly different voter behavior in the two regions. The agitation for civil rights by southern blacks, continued white violence toward the civil rights movement, and President Lyndon Johnson's aggressive leadership all facilitated passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. [...] In the South, 1964 should be associated with GOP growth while in the Northeast this election contributed to the eradication of Republicans.

^Stanley, Harold W. (1988). "Southern Partisan Changes: Dealignment, Realignment or Both?". The Journal of Politics. 50 (1): 64–88. doi:10.2307/2131041. ISSN0022-3816. Retrieved June 9, 2018. Events surrounding the presidential election of 1964 marked a watershed in terms of the parties and the South (Pomper, 1972). The Solid South was built around the identification of the Democratic party with the cause of white supremacy. Events before 1964 gave white southerners pause about the linkage between the Democratic party and white supremacy, but the 1964 election, passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 altered in the minds of most the positions of the national parties on racial issues.

^"The Rise of Southern Republicans — Earl Black, Merle Black". hup.harvard.edu. Harvard University Press. Retrieved June 9, 2018. When the Republican party nominated Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater—one of the few northern senators who had opposed the Civil Rights Act—as their presidential candidate in 1964, the party attracted many racist southern whites but permanently alienated African-American voters. Beginning with the Goldwater-versus-Johnson campaign more southern whites voted Republican than Democratic, a pattern that has recurred in every subsequent presidential election. [...] Before the 1964 presidential election the Republican party had not carried any Deep South state for eighty-eight years. Yet shortly after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, hundreds of Deep South counties gave Barry Goldwater landslide majorities.

^Miller, Gary; Schofield, Norman (2003). "Activists and Partisan Realignment in the United States". American Political Science Review. 97 (2): 245–260. doi:10.1017/S0003055403000650. ISSN1537-5943. Retrieved June 9, 2018. By 2000, however, the New Deal party alignment no longer captured patterns of partisan voting. In the intervening 40 years, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts had triggered an increasingly race-driven distinction between the parties. [...] Goldwater won the electoral votes of five states of the Deep South in 1964, four of them states that had voted Democratic for 84 years (Califano 1991, 55). He forged a new identification of the Republican party with racial conservatism, reversing a century-long association of the GOP with racial liberalism. This in turn opened the door for Nixon's "Southern strategy" and the Reagan victories of the eighties.

^"Unmarried Women in the 2004 Presidential Election"Archived January 1, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. (PDF). Report by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, January 2005. p. 3: "The marriage gap is one of the most important cleavages in electoral politics. Unmarried women voted for Kerry by a 25-point margin (62 to 37 percent), while married women voted for President Bush by an 11-point margin (55 percent to 44 percent). Indeed, the 25-point margin Kerry posted among unmarried women represented one of the high water marks for the Senator among all demographic groups." "Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on January 1, 2016. Retrieved November 23, 2006.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)

^To some extent the United States Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade caused American Christians to blur their historical division along the line between Catholics and Protestants and instead to realign as conservatives or liberals, irrespective of the Reformation Era distinction.

Barone, Michael. The Almanac of American Politics 2014: The Senators, the Representatives and the Governors: Their Records and Election Results, Their States and Districts (2013); revised every two years since 1975.

Black, Earl and Merle Black. The Rise of Southern Republicans (2002).

Brennan, Mary C. Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP (1995).

Conger, Kimberly H. The Christian Right in Republican State Politics (2010) 202 pages; focuses on Arizona, Indiana, and Missouri.

Crane, Michael. The Political Junkie Handbook: The Definitive Reference Books on Politics (2004) covers all the major issues explaining the parties' positions.

Critchlow, Donald T. The Conservative Ascendancy: How the Republican Right Rose to Power in Modern America (2nd ed. 2011).

Schlesinger, Arthur Meier Jr. ed. History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–2000 (various multivolume editions, latest is 2001). Essays on the most important election are reprinted in Schlesinger, The Coming to Power: Critical presidential elections in American history (1972).

Shafer, Byron E. and Anthony J. Badger, eds. Contesting Democracy: Substance and Structure in American Political History, 1775–2000 (2001), long essays by specialists on each time period:

includes: "To One or Another of These Parties Every Man Belongs": 1820–1865 by Joel H. Silbey; "Change and Continuity in the Party Period: 1835–1885" by Michael F. Holt; "The Transformation of American Politics: 1865–1910" by Peter H. Argersinger; "Democracy, Republicanism, and Efficiency: 1885–1930" by Richard Jensen; "The Limits of Federal Power and Social Policy: 1910–1955" by Anthony J. Badger; "The Rise of Rights and Rights Consciousness: 1930–1980" by James T. Patterson; and "Economic Growth, Issue Evolution, and Divided Government: 1955–2000" by Byron E. Shafer.

Shafer, Byron and Richard Johnston. The End of Southern Exceptionalism (2006), uses statistical election data and polls to argue GOP growth was primarily a response to economic change.

Steely, Mel. The Gentleman from Georgia: The Biography of Newt Gingrich Mercer University Press, 2000. ISBN0-86554-671-1.

Sundquist, James L. Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States (1983).

Wooldridge, Adrian and John Micklethwait. The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America (2004).

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